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New Books in American Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in American Studies
Lauren R. Kerby, "Saving History: How White Evangelicals Tour the Nation’s Capital and Redeem a Christian America" (UNC Press, 2020)
Millions of tourists visit Washington D.C. every year, vying to see its landscape, museums, and buildings and learn about seminal moments in US history…
- New Books in American Studies
Duane Tananbaum, "Herbert H. Lehman: A Political Biography" (SUNY Press, 2017)
Over the course of three decades of public service, Herbert Lehman dedicated himself tirelessly to advances the causes in which he believed. In Herbert H…
- New Books in American Studies
John W. Compton, "The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving their Neighbors" (Oxford UP, 2020)
We’re all familiar with the statistic that 81% of white evangelical voters supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. But what if a deeper trawl…
- New Books in American Studies
S. Daulatzai and J. Rana, “With Stones in Our Hands: Reflections on Racism, Muslims and US Empire” (U Minnesota Press, 2018)
In this current moment it has become increasingly clear that US society is deeply entangled in racist policies and logics of white supremacy. While this…
- New Books in American Studies
Post Script: Kamala Harris as Vice President
This is our second podcast in a new series from New Books in Political Science called POST-SCRIPT in which Susan and I invite authors back to the podcast to…
- New Books in American Studies
Andrea Benjamin, "Racial Coalition Building in Local Elections: Elite Cues and Cross-Ethnic Voting" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
What explains voting behavior in local elections? More specifically, what explains how ethnic and racial blocs vote in local elections, especially when the…
- New Books in American Studies
Erik Gellman, "Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles Through the Lens of Art Shay" (Chicago UP, 2020)
James West speaks with Erik Gellman, an associate professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about his new book Troublemakers…
- New Books in American Studies
Kyle Barnett, "Record Cultures: The Transformation of the U.S. Recording Industry" (U Michigan Press, 2020)
In Record Cultures: The Transformation of the U.S. Recording Industry (University of Michigan Press, 2020), Kyle Barnett tells the story of the smaller U.S…
- New Books in American Studies
Christopher Newfield, "The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2016)
In The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), Christopher Newfield diagnoses what he…
- New Books in American Studies
Jill A. Fisher, "Adverse Events: Race, Inequality, and the Testing of New Pharmaceuticals" (NYU Press, 2020)
Imagine that you volunteer for the clinical trial of an experimental drug. The only direct benefit of participating is that you will receive up to $5,175. You…
- New Books in American Studies
Amy Von Lintel, "Georgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters" (Texas A&M UP, 2020)
In 1912, at age 24, Georgia O’Keeffe boarded a train in Virginia and headed west, to the prairies of the Texas Panhandle, to take a position as art teacher for…
- New Books in American Studies
Deborah E. Kanter, "Chicago Católico: Making Catholic Parishes Mexican" (U Illinois Press, 2020)
What happens when a new group of migrants enters not just the social and economic life of a city, but also its religious institutions? Deborah E. Kanter, the…
- New Books in American Studies
Emily Pawley, "The Nature of the Future: Agriculture, Science, and Capitalism in the Antebellum North" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
The nostalgic mist surrounding farms can make it hard to write their history, encrusting them with stereotypical rural virtues and unrealistically separating…
- New Books in American Studies
LaDale Winling, "Building the Ivory Tower: Universities and Metropolitan Development in the Twentieth Century" (U Penn Press, 2018)
Universities have become state-like entities, possessing their own hospitals, police forces, and real estate companies. To become such behemoths, higher…
- New Books in American Studies
Thomas Borstelmann, "Just Like Us: The American Struggle to Understand Foreigners" (Columbia UP, 2020)
The American attitude towards outsiders has always been ambivalent. The United States, it is commonly said, is a nation of immigrants; today, it’s the most…
- New Books in American Studies
J. Browning and T. Silver, "An Environmental History of the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2020)
This sweeping new history recognizes that the Civil War was not just a military conflict but also a moment of profound transformation in Americans'…
- New Books in American Studies
John C. McManus, "Fire and Fortitude: The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943 (Dutton Caliber, 2019)
For most Americans, the war the United States waged in the Pacific in the Second World War was one fought primarily by the Navy and the Marine Corps. As John…
- New Books in American Studies
Joshua Nall, "News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2019)
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re hearing an awful lot about the fraught relationship between science and media. In his book, News from Mars: Mass…
- New Books in American Studies
Alex Sayf Cummings, "Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy" (Columbia UP, 2020)
Beginning in the 1950s, a group of academics, businesspeople, and politicians set out on an ambitious project to remake North Carolina’s low-wage economy. They…
- New Books in American Studies
Samuel Morris Brown, "Joseph Smith's Translation: The Words and Worlds of Early Mormonism" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to have translated ancient scriptures. He dictated an American Bible from metal plates reportedly buried by ancient…
- New Books in American Studies
Thomas Richards Jr., "Breakaway Americas: The Unmanifest Future of Jacksonian America" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
In Breakaway Americas: The Unmanifest Future of Jacksonian America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020), Thomas Richards Jr., a history teacher at Springside…
- New Books in American Studies
Anne Lindsay, "Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites: America in the Eighteenth Century" (Routledge, 2020)
2020 had been an intense year for Americans reflecting on their nation’s history. From attacks on statues to public debates about the 1619 Project to the…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael Rectenwald, "Beyond Woke" (New English Review Press, 2020)
A few short years ago, Michael Rectenwald was a Marxist professor at NYU, pursuing his career and contemplating becoming a Trotskyist, when the political…
- New Books in American Studies
Caridad Svich, "Mitchell and Trask’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (Routledge, 2019
Mitchell and Trask’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Routledge, 2019) is Caridad Svich’s love letter to the 1998 musical that introduced the world to its favorite…
- New Books in American Studies
Lesly-Marie Buer, "RX Appalachia: Stories of Treatment and Survival in Rural Kentucky" (Haymarket, 2020)
Using the narratives of women who use(d) drugs, this account challenges popular understandings of Appalachia spread by such pundits as JD Vance by documenting…
- New Books in American Studies
Melissa J. Wilde, "Birth Control Battles: How Race and Class Divided American Religion" (U California Press, 2020)
Although it has largely been erased from the collective memory of American Christianity, the debate over eugenics was a major factor in the history of…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael A. Olivas, "Perchance to DREAM: A Legal and Political History of the DREAM Act and DACA" (NYU Press, 2020)
Why did the DREAM Act (for the Development, Relief, and Education of Alien Minors) never pass Congress – even though it was popular with Republicans and…
- New Books in American Studies
Aya Gruber, "The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration" (U California Press, 2020)
Aya Gruber, a professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School, has written a history of how the women’s movement in America has shaped the law on…
- New Books in American Studies
Sunny Stalter-Pace, "Imitation Artist: Gertrude Hoffman’s Life in Vaudeville and Dance" (Northwestern UP, 2020)
Gertrude Hoffman is one of many entertainers who were big stars in vaudeville before World War I, but whose celebrity faded as the American public was seduced…
- New Books in American Studies
Brett Dakin, "American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and The Battles of Lev Gleason" (Chapterhouse Publishing, 2020)
In American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and The Battles of Lev Gleason (Chapterhouse Publishing, 2020), Brett Dakin, Gleason’s great-nephew delves into the…
- New Books in American Studies
David A. Harris, "A City Divided: Race, Fear and the Law in Police Confrontations" (Anthem Press, 2020)
How do we move police forces from a warrior culture to connecting better with communities they serve? Today I talked to David A. Harris about his new book A…
- New Books in American Studies
Lindsay M. Chervinsky, "The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution" (Harvard UP, 2020)
In her new book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution (Harvard University Press, 2020), historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky…
- New Books in American Studies
Sarah B. Rodriguez, "The Love Surgeon: A Story of Trust, Harm, and the Limits of Medical Regulation" (Rutgers UP, 2020)
Dr. James Burt believed women’s bodies were broken, and only he could fix them. In the 1950s, this Ohio OB-GYN developed what he called “love surgery,” a…
- New Books in American Studies
Amity Shlaes, "Great Society: A New History" (Harper, 2019)
National concern about income inequalities. Race relations at a boiling point. Riots in the streets. Cries on the left for massive allocations of federal money…
- New Books in American Studies
Ann Tucker, "Newest Born of Nations: European Nationalist Movements and the Making of the Confederacy" (UVA Press, 2020)
From the earliest stirrings of southern nationalism to the defeat of the Confederacy, analysis of European nationalist movements played a critical role in how…
- New Books in American Studies
Sophie White, "Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana" (UNC Press, 2019)
In her prize-winning study Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Colonial Louisiana (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and…
- New Books in American Studies
Jan Doering, "Us versus Them: Race, Crime, and Gentrification in Chicago Neighborhoods" (Oxford UP, 2020)
With such high levels of residential segregation along racial lines in the United States, gentrifying neighborhoods present fascinating opportunities to…
- New Books in American Studies
JoAnna Poblete, "Balancing the Tides: Marine Practices in American Samoa" (U Hawai’i Press, 2020)
In Balancing the Tides: Marine Practices in American Samoa (University of Hawai’i Press, 2020), JoAnna Poblete demonstrates how western-style economics…
- New Books in American Studies
Theresa Kaminski, "Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War: One Woman's Journey to the Medal of Honor and the Fight for Women's Rights" (Lyons Press, 2020)
Among the tens of thousands of Americans who volunteered their services during the Civil War was Mary Walker, a daring young woman who was one of the handful…
- New Books in American Studies
Kathleen Bachynski, "No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis" (UNC Press, 2019)
Today we are joined by Kathleen Bachynski, Assistant Professor of Public Health at Muhlenberg College, and author of No Game for Boys to Play: The History of…
- New Books in American Studies
R. K. Jefferson and H. B. Johnson, "Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court (NYU Press, 2020)
Before Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court in 1981, nine highly qualified women were on the shortlist. What do the stories of…
- New Books in American Studies
Verónica Martínez-Matsuda, "Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania Press)…
- New Books in American Studies
Emily Wallace, "Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South" (U Texas Press, 2019)
In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Emily Wallace, author and illustrator of the new book Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and…
- New Books in American Studies
Justin Gomer, "White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights" (UNC Press, 2020)
Justin Gomer is the author of White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights, published by the University of North…
- New Books in American Studies
Katherine Zien, "Sovereign Acts: Performing Race, Space, and Belonging in Panama and the Canal Zone" (Rutgers UP, 2017)
In Sovereign Acts: Performing Race, Space, and Belonging in Panama and the Canal Zone (Rutgers University Press, 2017), Katherine Zien examines the ways…
- New Books in American Studies
Thomas Bishop, "Every Home a Fortress: Cold War Fatherhood and the Family Fallout Shelter" (UMass Press, 2020)
In Every Home a Fortress: Cold War Fatherhood and the Family Fallout Shelter (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), Thomas Bishop details the remarkable…
- New Books in American Studies
Andrew S. Baer, "Beyond the Usual Beating" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
In the 1970s and 1980s, a group of Chicago police officers routinely tortured criminal suspects in their custody, while fellow cops, state attorneys and…
- New Books in American Studies
John B. Holbein, "Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes into Action" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
In the United States, each election cycle reminds us that younger voters vote at much lower rates than their older counterparts. This discrepancy is often…
- New Books in American Studies
Manuel Betancourt, "Judy Garland's Judy at Carnegie Hall" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020)
In Judy Garland's Judy at Carnegie Hall (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), Manuel Betancourt explores what makes Judy Garland’s landmark album great, and why it…
- New Books in American Studies
Raymond Winbush, "The Osiris Papers: Reflections on the Life and Writing of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing" (Black Classics Press, 2019)
Today’s interview is with Dr. Raymond Winbush a research professor and the Director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University. Dr. Winbush…
- New Books in American Studies
Christina Dunbar-Hester, "Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures" (Princeton UP, 2020)
In Hacking Diversity: The Politics of inclusion in Open Technology Cultures (Princeton University Press, 2020), Christina-Dunbar Hester, an associate professor…
New Books in American StudiesGod, The Founders, and Natural Law: A Conversation with Phil Muñoz
How did the American Founders understand religious liberty? Why should students study the Founding? What is the relationship between the Declaration of…
- New Books in American Studies
Kevin Escudero, "Organizing While Undocumented: Immigrant Youth’s Political Activism Under the Law" (NYU Press, 2020)
Undocumented youth activists are at the forefront of the present-day immigrant rights movement. This is especially true surrounding the activism of the recent…
- New Books in American Studies
Leslie Dorrough Smith, "Compromising Positions: Sex Scandals, Politics, and American Christianity" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Sex scandals are ubiquitous in American politics. In Compromising Positions: Sex Scandals, Politics, and American Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2019)…
- New Books in American Studies
Mark Anderson, "From Boas to Black Power: Racism, Liberalism and American Anthropology" (Stanford UP, 2019)
Mark Anderson’s From Boas to Black Power: Racism, Liberalism and American Anthropology (Stanford University Press) is at once a story about US anthropology and…
- New Books in American Studies
Walter Johnson, "The Broken Heart of America" (Basic Books, 2020)
St. Louis, Missouri is the city with the highest rate of police shootings in the United States. It’s the city with an 18 year difference in life expectancy…
- New Books in American Studies
Xueli Wang, "On My Own: The Challenge and Promise of Building Equitable STEM Transfer Pathways" (Harvard Education Press, 2020)
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Xueli Wang from the University of Wisconsin-Madison on her new book, “On My Own: The Challenge and Promise of Building…
- New Books in American Studies
Brian F. Harrison, "A Change is Gonna Come: How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America" (Oxford UP, 2020)
The United States takes pride in its democratic model and the idea that citizens deliberate in a process to form political opinions. However, in recent years…
- New Books in American Studies
Greil Marcus, “Under the Red White and Blue" (Yale UP, 2020)
If Jay Gatsby is the embodiment of patriotism, what does that mean for America? Join NBN host Lee Pierce and author Greil Marcus as they take a deep dive into…
- New Books in American Studies
Nick Estes, "Our History is the Future" (Verso, 2019)
For the second time, Nick Estes has been gracious enough to participate in a New Books Network podcast to discuss his book Our History is the Future: Standing…